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Friday, October 5, 2012

Turkey Lied about Syria Taking Responsibility for Attack

Turkey lied to the United Nations when it claimed that Syria had
apologized and taken responsibility for the mortar attack which led to a
de facto declaration of war, increasing the likelihood that the
shelling was actually carried out by Turkish-backed FSA rebels. Reports which emerged immediately
after Turkey’s parliament gave the green light for military strikes to
be carried out inside Syria described how Turkey’s deputy prime minister
Besir Atalay told the UN how Syria had “admitted it was responsible for
the shelling that killed five civilians in Turkey” and had “formally
apologized” for the incident.

This instantly put a dampener on a growing body of
evidence to suggest that it was in fact FSA rebels and not Syrian forces
who were responsible for the initial attack. German news channel ZDF broadcast two separate reports that stated Syrian rebels had taken responsibility for the attack in Akçakale. In addition, a newly released video shows
Syrian rebels purportedly in the very region that the mortar attack
took place showing off mortar shells and taking credit for the attack. Ensuring that Syria was blamed for the attack in the
eyes of the international community, which roundly condemned President
Assad despite there being scant details of the incident, was key for
Turkey, especially given reports that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan immediately demanded the United States of Zionism impose a no fly zone over the country in response to the attack.

However, despite international media headlines
proclaiming it to be the case, Syria never took responsibility for the
attack and never apologized for it. As
Syria’s UN representative, Bashar al-Jaafari, made clear during a
statement, although offering condolences to the victims of the attack in
Turkey, Syria refused to accept the blame. Announcing that the Syrian authorities were conducting a
detailed investigation of the incident, al-Jaafari said, “This was not
an apology, this was an expression of solidarity with the civilians.” “The investigation is not over yet. The Syrian
authorities are doing their duty. We ask the Turkish side to do the
same,” he added.

Despite al-Jaafari’s insistence that Syria did not
apologize and did not accept responsibility for the attack, the notion
that Syria launched the initial attack and later admitted to it, thereby
justifying Turkey’s aggressive response, has taken hold as part of the
official narrative behind the entire series of events. This again emphasizes how NATO powers and compliant Gulf states are desperate to create a pretext for regime change in Syria,
and will not stop at fabricating an incident and then inventing lies
about it in order to manufacture a casus belli for a military assault.